Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Optimal packing of telescopic heliostats

Telescopic heliostats can be arrayed such that the sun sees a packed array of primary mirrors and the beam-down optics sees a packed array of secondary mirrors.

Is it possible to arrange telescopic heliostats such that the sun sees a packed array of primary mirrors while the beam-down optics sees a packed array of secondary mirrors?

The figure shows that the answer is yes. (Ironically, it's the same figure as in the previous post, but it is illustrating a different point.) See the the circles in the figure as primary mirrors viewed from the sun's perspective, and the ellipses as shadows cast on the ground by the secondary mirrors when they are illuminated from the direction of the beam-down optics. For example, in the illustrated case, the center of the field can be imagined to lie somewhere far beyond the lower left corner of the image. Extending this arrangement of telescopic heliostats with radial symmetry completes the design for one annular portion of the field. (It is always necessary to segment a heliostat field into annular zones because more heliostats must be incorporated in annular zones of greater radius.)

Because the tracking motions and optics are identical over an array of telescopic heliostats,  the optimum field arrangement of telescopic heliostats always has radial symmetry.

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